Leilanie Stewart

       Featured Poetry of Leilanie Stewart

Cycle of Rebirth

I’m sitting
writing a poem
about a woman
who wrote a poem
on the Underground.

Her poem
left me feeling sad-
all about a woman
who miscarried a child
in her concrete womb.

I’m sitting
in a train on the tracks
stuck in the blackness
of a concrete womb-
a tunnel,

ferrying me on
into a netherworld
from which I hope
I can escape
into the light.

Charon,
don’t deliver me
into the realm of Hades
I’ve eaten my pomegranate seeds,
all six of them,
but,

I’ll use them
as the Ancient Egyptians did,
a symbol of fertility
biding my time to return
to a world of new life-

in spring.

-

Coma

As I lie here
in this vegetative state
dictating to myself
in my head, I realise
there is no true silence
while the flesh is warm.

My mind ticks over
but my body can’t keep up
thoughts dissipate
into the ether,
knowing one day my body
will follow.

Until then, I lie
trapped by carbon
my limbs perfectly still
but the metaconscious
racing, the definition
of quiet, is unknown.

-

This is the soppiest I can get

The world was full
Of upside down teardrops
You turned them around
And made them into hearts
You stuck them on
A sheet of cloth
I wore them proudly
It’s the toughest fabric I know
Because you wove
A part of yourself into it
Just for me

-

Verity

Psyche got punished
for wanting to know the truth,
wanting to see the face of her husband.

She was banished from the Kingdom
the moment she held
a candle and knife over Cupid’s head.

It’s always been the same, ages before, ages since
that we should live our lives in blissful denial
accepting the hell imposed on us as a slice of heaven.

But not me. I’m with Psyche
climbing that mountain to fill her urn
with the purest water coming straight from source.

-

The Opposite of White is Black

The lighthouse
has had enough
of sharing light with ships
that would be better off
crashing against the rocks,
sinking into a stygian abyss,
simply because
they carry cargo from
one port to another
and never question
their orders.

Standing on a lone promontory
the lighthouse knows
erosion will soon cut it off
The fog will roll in, surround it,
on its limestone stack.

Tomorrow will not be the same
but that’s ok
life is better for the lighthouse
in the dark; tainted,
than on an easy ride
over a glassy bay.

-

Humanist

He said that
he’d got her sussed out-
that he’d hit
the nail on the head,
predicting her every move.

He claimed he
was a humanist,
though he’d mixed up
his vocabulary
and really meant
humanitarian,
when he said
that she should
learn her place-
in the kitchen.

Then again,
maybe he was
neither of those things.

-

Myasthenia Gravis

When I was younger
people used to ask me
why I didn’t smile much
and I’d tell them I had
myasthenia gravis
rather than admit
that I had one too many
worries on my brow,
burdening me, forming
the skin on my forehead
into wrinkles, pushing
the muscles of my cheeks
into loose hanging jowls
that slowly dripped over
my chin, making me
into the lapdog for the
people who put the frown
on my face, in the first
place.

-

Lapis Luzuli

Don’t ask me why,
but I hate the word ‘lacunae’;
it sounds vulgar,
like a derogatory term
for a part of the female anatomy

Now, if I were to decorate
this ‘depression’, or lacunae
with lapis luzuli, suddenly,
it would be transformed
into a ritual fit for any Pict.

-

A Matter of Perspective

I finally had my stigmatism fixed;
not the one in my eyes,
but the one on my soul;
the one through which I saw
all the people in my life whirl by
in a kaleidoscope
Funny then, that amidst the gale
of relationships I thought I had
got straight, in my head,
I was missing the point
and all the colours were blurred
They blended into a muddy mix,
the red platelets breaking
into a stream of yellow plasma
staining everything around me
mauve.

-

Bell Curve

Most people live their lives
as grown-up toddlers;
ego-centric souls
interested only in concerns
that involve them, while all the time,
never thinking to delve deeper
than the surface of their own skin.

What is beneath the epidermis?
A blackened, wizened spirit
or a bulb that has never flowered,
never been nurtured, never seen daylight-
never had a chance to grow.

If the latter is the cause,
then the life was nothing more
than a shallow existence,
of a grey shade, floating,
from post to post, barely leaving notches.

How sad.

Copyright © 2013 Leilanie Stewart

Featured Poetry of Samantha Seto

Waterfall

Breaking before our eyes into a sound,
as whoosh and swish of the ocean tide.
In constant as rhythmic strokes
branches crack and are thrown into the stream.

I stood among the trees and watched,
immobile in the cooling shade,
the leaf surfaced, face up beneath the bridge.
Woooh, the wind howled.

Cut limbs falling, the crack they make,
each dropping from its trunk as though for once
the last branch of winter made us trim.

Lost for violence of mid-air branches,
soft current dragged on as wind chimes
blew at the stretch of the dam.

Wading water into land, downward
as the deep blue sea, at times where
the light reflected a bend.

Slowed the surface calm waters,
evergreen trees lined the banks of river,
as natural forces contained the seed of life.

-

Nature Awakening

The fading moon, and she emerges
from quiet woods above the cliff.
We love swimming in the clouds,
along the high cliffs and deep in valleys,
we chase the scattering of flocks,
roaring anger of the rising river water
from a rocky, sandy bank.

The cloak is lovely, divine heaven,
in your proud kingdom, I am worthless.
My eyes follow the light that reflects you.
In the shadow if the bending willows,
we meet and dance at once.

We are going to die. The spell is cast.
Our souls are blind to our fate.
Gazing into midnight, we are hopeless love,
with our illusions and dreams of childhood.
The happiest day of life is first to leave us.

-

Lives of Infinity

This lonely hill was always dear to me.
I hear the wind stir these branches,
I begin comparing that endless stillness
with this noise pounding in my head.

The eternity comes to mind,
dead seasons, lives of forever bound,
so my head sinks, tears drift to the ground.

The eternal, all-commanding nature
was created for me to suffer.
The earth gods have denied hope,
my eyes would never shine, they whisper.

I race blindly through the grasslands,
memories pour out of the sky.
Evergreens tremble in the wind,
dirt beneath the melancholy earth.

-

Near the Sea

All is purplish-blue:
at heavy surface of the sea,
as tides swell and turnover.
Opaque water lines the green benches
the lobster pots, scattered sea lions
among the wild jagged rocks.

The beach shore has translucence
like the small old buildings with emerald moss
growing on their veined walls.

The big fish tubs are lined
with layers of beautiful herring mermaid scales,
wheelbarrows are plastered with red paint
holding creamy coats of mail,
small black flies crawling in salt on them.

On the hill behind the houses,
in the bright sprinkle of mildew on grass,
is an ancient wooden ship-wheel,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.

-

Moving Apartments

We wrangled noiselessly.
It’s not as if a recorder needs to hum.
The clocks taught us into existence.

In the painting of a mock funeral, we intercept traffic.
Our dog stayed, we have our housing flexibility.
Broke amounts gamboled and stolen.
While wealth peels off, a tiny button falls off tablecloth.

My father closes the door,
scared he will wake me from sleep,
a thesis in congested paper web in my headache.

Above a small stiff sheet of white bedroom.
In painting impracticalities coming nearer out of time.
Fixed or moving furniture of step by step,
he takes off with his boxes.

It came to me then.
It was time for the move but my dad didn’t suit plans.
From the summer on the coast to the west winds.

Copyright © 2013 Samantha Seto

Featured Poetry of Norberto Franco Cisneros

Elegy to the Hunchback Mind of the Stone Walker

The Historical Stone Walker sings gravedigger songs.
The midget rides a frail Dalmatian dog, horses bray at pastel colored ghosts conjured by the hunchback mind of the Historical Stone Walker. The Walker skips from stone to stone never falling, he never falls.
In cockfighting as in life one cock slashes the other cock on and on until one dies. In the background John Lennon’s Imagine reverberates in silence in overfilled churches, mosques and synagogues, but devoid of humanity. The dancers dance the Horah to a Palestinian dance step beguiling frogs in heat, stimulating all beasts to copulate simultaneously. Phalluses of Cro-Magnon meat meander through hairless vulvas slithering from genital to genital coercing lesser minds into libidinous ecstasy.
Lights shine on metal drones obsessed with people dying, screaming in pain, in limbo, in perpetuity, with spiritual values suspended on the swastika of hope (their cross of nails).
War embraces profits and only profits overturning the balance of good humanity. Loud repetitive ideologies that don’t persuade, but confuse, tell lies that swallow the truth and create chaos sucking the marrow out of life leaving behind, misery and death.
It is said strange apparitions and false prophets will appear at the End Times and snow will fall in the desert; evil with many illogical voices distorting Nature with promises of God and gold will lead Dead Peasants to their own destruction. Gabriel’s golden trumpet will play the final note before the irreversible end, which the whole world will hear.

Take heed, you who worship profits. Consider your comfort today. Are you sure there’s a tomorrow? The Stone Walker flits from stone to stone inscribing the Maya warning. Do you sense the suffering, the misery? Do you feel the fear? Do you smell the stench of decaying bodies? Do you have an inner gnawing telling you tomorrow will never come.
The Apocalypse is happening now!

-

Love is Nature is Love

The brook follows the path of least resistance
It does not confront obstacles
It embraces them
Nature knows not war

The landscape is tranquil, peaceful
Nature likes it that way
Rolling shades of green sprinkle the velvet hills with
A myriad display of colorful flowers taunt the multihues of the rainbow

The eye follows the brook’s unimpeded meandering path
A Monarch jig-jaggedly flies in glee
Its life will shortly come to an end but
That’s Nature’s way too

Clear. clean water caresses the rocks underneath it,
Whispering sweet, gurgling, purling sounds
Its watery arms embracing the smooth stones
As it fills the cracks between them

A dark brown and brittle dry leaf
Detached by a tender wind floats
Softly landing on a fallen twig
It remembers where it came from

This is Nature making love with passion
Subtleties which go unnoticed to the human eye
Are nevertheless relevant in their spirit
As life unfolds its evolution.

When we make love – Who sees us?
Sometimes we don’t even see each other
We often forget that love is tender, giving,
Nurturing, healing and compassionate
Nature knows this.
Our hearts know it too, yet we squander
Our humanity frivously.

-

The Changing of the Guard

On a chilly night, under a dimly flickering light, the never ending wet street, stoic and abandoned, chided me. My knees weakened by despair, with my heart out of wishes and my body out of good health, I played notes on my ole friend, my trumpet, but the melody hid from itself. It seems reality appears more honest at this time in a man’s life when despair and the absence of a good tomorrow confront him. He reflects more candidly on truths:

“A life is born, a life lives, a life dies and in between,
the haunting now is forever present, and
finality does not come easily or quickly.”

Beyond the end of the sad street, I saw a lone figure whose translucent skin housed the fires of Hades. It emerged from a swirling mist of cloudy gray, its nostrils flared and snorted, his slobbering mouth spewed a stale, sulphuric smell that sickened the soul. He, the shadow of life, dressed in a long black overcoat and a Fedora that covered the top of his face down to his eyebrows, carried a scythe that sparkled sliver and was sharp.

“I want you.”

He pointed at me ominously.

“Twenty millennia ago,
I was chosen to take up this task and my time is up.
You will take my place when the sun rises.”

“Why me, twenty thousand years is a long time? I’m old and in pain.”

“You were chosen.
There is no rest for you until your time is up, but
Your pain will be taken away.”

I blinked and he was no more, unperturbed, I understood what had just transpired, but I did not pickup the scythe only my trumpet.

Slowly, I walked towards my future as the brightening horizon flamed golden on the hills against the azure sky, with great anticipation, I began playing my trumpet and I knew, as long as my trumpet was with me, I would last the twenty thousand years, for I realized, it is music not death that transports the soul.

Copyright © 2013 Norberto Franco Cisneros

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We accept Poetry, Short Fiction, Research Papers, Book/Film/Art Reviews, Interviews, Photography and Visual Art

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and

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Follow the submission guidelines under each section:

Poetry: You can submit up to 6 poems. There is no minimum or maximum word limit, but we will be comfortable with poems that run between 10 to 40 lines. Form poetry and free verse are welcome. We may choose 3 or 4 poems, depending on the quality and the space we have.

Short Fiction: You can send 1 story, ideally between 1000 to and 6000 words. Novel excerpts are also welcome, if they are stand-alone pieces. We are not totally against genre fiction, though we may show some preference to literary fiction.

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Special Note: Alan Summers from our advisory committee is the editor for The Special Featureon Haiku/Haibun for the August 2013 issue. However, he has informed us that he has already received the sufficient number of entries. You can contact him at haiku@dircon.co.uk for any related query.

Featured Poem of Darrel Alejandro Holnes

Pulse

He drums loudest when she’s around, silence too sour a sound for seduction.
But heavy drumming deafens her

and fangs drag across his chest                   as she saves herself by eating
                what’s beating            her            to death
but keeps his carcass for company—
                 sweetness in the quiet
explosion of arteries, in the quiet
                                digestion of cartilage and bone—
perhaps a mute melody
                               perhaps a melodious murder.

Swallowing notes in lumps of flesh
                    she savors stopping heart-breaking rhythms,
until guilt, like a drumstick,              strikes her belly,
                    guts      drum up a dirge.

Here is how we make music
               even when we cannot stand its sound,
love bellowing, found or lost.

Surrender to palpitating
                                             rup-a-pum percussion,
                 open aortas only able to bleed wanting songs.
Drink, or lend your ear                         and raise your voice; to be living
                  is to sing the inescapable choral hymn:

                  r-r-rup-a-pum                                         boom,

r-r-rup-a-pum                                crash,

                 r-r-rup-a-pum                                          boom,

r-r-rup-a-pum                              smash!

Copyright © 2013 Darrel Alejandro Holnes

Ranu Uniyal

Her main research interests are in Indian literature, Women’s writing and Post colonial literatures. Her research papers and book reviews have been published extensively in India and abroad. Her English poems have been translated into Uzbek, Hindi, Urdu and Malayalam. She is Associate Editor of The SPIEL Journal of English Studies (Lucknow).

She is the author of Women and Landscape: The fiction of Margaret Drabble and Anita Desai (Creative Books New Delhi 2000); Poems Across the Divide (Yeti Books, Calicut 2006); Raja Rao’s Kanthapura :A critical study (co-edited )Asia Book Club, New Delhi 2007); Women in Indian Writing : From Difference to Diversity (Prestige Books, New Delhi 2009); December Poems (Writers Workshop, Kolkata 2012).

She is currently working on a book of poems in Hindi. She is also one of the founding members of “PYSSUM” a charitable organization for children with special needs in Lucknow.

Featured Poetry of Ranu Uniyal

Confession

My silence
can never beat
the rhythm of
your stare
Disenfranchised
I discard
all my virtues
for your love’s sake.

Ahalya to Ram

I was once young and beautiful
Until I turned a stone and hid my forehead
On the clumsy grass hallowed and brown
I stumbled and lost my form and face
I turned my speech into ashes and withheld my sighs.
How easy to hurt the woman who was cheated by gods?
Deceit and pride did anger invite
Such shame and loss is mine.
Aged with envy, and unmindful distrust
He crossed my legs and left me with a curse
Until the gods intervened
And I came back to life.

But was it the same husband that I aspired for
The same house with its cropped up mats
No I choose to be a stone than a mate
To a man whose eyes believed what he could not see
Yes I’d rather be a stone that leaves neither aches nor flutters.
I carry within a heaviness that has curled with the weight
Of their angry feet and elsewhere sticks like an old habit.
Without form without face and ashes for speech Hey Ram!
I am now quite uncomfortable with the knowledge
Of knowing a curse would soon fall on her who
Stands beside you in these troubled times.

Radha to Krishna

Come Krishna and be my self
Dressed in a woman’s attire
How beautiful it is to see my
Longing for you as I comb my hair
In front of the mirror

Come Krishna and be my kohl
Black and brimming with light
How wonderful it is to read my
Ecstasy as it beholds the joy of
Oneness with you

Come Krishna and be my anklet
Silver embossed and naughty
How full of tease the tinkle is
Knowing it will meet you on the
Banks of Yamuna shielded by cows

Come Krishna and be my scarf
Ladled with shades of red and green
How restless as the wind it flows
Delighted with fragrance of Jasmine
Feet rush in haste to travel with you

Come Krishna and search me now
Not by any name a whisper or a song
How futile it is to call me by any
Name now that I have lost myself
Please let me know in case you find me

Woman To Woman
(Kamala Das to Judith Wright)

You tell me of a sorrow
That was mine
Yesterday
I brushed my hands
The rough edges of my nails
Had another sorrow and underneath
It was all wet, wet with a sense of despair
Are they all the same the men we loved?
The one who promised and walked away
And the one who married
And the one whose seed I held inside
With such unholy patience and longing

You share with me a joke
That is yours
Today
I laugh with you
It is another tale of a woman
Who like us
Did odd jobs, a house, a husband and a child or two
Or none what difference would it make?
Yet in place and she danced to the tune
Until it soured her bones and soiled her blood.
But she smiled and hugged her tears as if
Nothing at all had happened.

There she was at the bus stop,
At the post office
In bed and the kitchen
Beside the computer and the bath room
Unlike Clytemnestra unlike Draupadi
Unlike Medusa unlike Anusuya
Kicking her angst afraid
It would not just eat her inside out
But follow her like a ghost and then
They would all know
These smells of the sweat
Only dead possess.

Copyright © 2012 Ranu Uniyal

Donal Mahoney

Featured Poetry of Donal Mahoney

Lifts Her Like A Chalice

The weekday Mass at 6 a.m.
brings the old folks out
from bungalows
around the church.
They move like caterpillars
down sidewalks,
some with canes,
some on walkers.

Father Doyle says the Mass
and then goes back to the rectory
to care for his mother
who cannot move or speak
because of a stroke.

And every Sunday at noon
when the church is full,
Father Doyle, in full vestments,
wheels his mother
in a lump
down the middle aisle
and lifts her like a chalice
and places her in the front pew
before he ascends to the altar.

Sometimes at night,
when his mother’s asleep,
Father Doyle comes back to the Church
and rehearses in the dark
three hymns she long ago
asked him to sing at her funeral.

He practices the hymns
because the doctor said
she could go at any time.
When that time comes,
he doesn’t want to miss a note.
The last thing she ever said was
“Son, I’ll be listening.”

Apple Fritter and a Single Rose

After 30 years together,
Carol tells me late one evening
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem

about her, something she
will never understand in light
of all those other poems
she says I wrote

about those other women
before she drove North.
And so I tell her once again
I wrote those other poems

about no women I ever knew
the way I now know her
even if I saw them once or twice
for dinner, maybe,

and a little vodka
over lime and ice.
Near midnight, though,
she says again

in the manner of a quiet wife
it’s been thirty years
and still no poem.
When morning comes

I motor off to town to buy
a paper and a poem
for Carol
but find instead

undulating in a big glass case
an apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting.

So I buy the lovely fritter
and a single long-stem rose
orphaned near the register,
roaring red, and still

at full attention.
I bring them home but find
Carol still asleep
and so I put the fritter

on the breadboard
and the rose right next to it,
at the proper angle.
When she wakes I hope

the fritter and the rose
will buy me time until
somewhere in the attic
of my mind I find

a poem that says
more about us than
this apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,

lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.

In Certain Matters of the Heart

It’s a matter of the heart,
the doctor says,
and he can fix it
with catheter ablation.
“It works miracles,” he says,
“in certain matters of the heart.”

He’s been a cardiologist for years.
“Take my word for it,” he says.
“You’ll be sedated. Won’t feel a thing.”

No excavation in my chest, either.
Instead, he’ll make little holes
in my groin and snake tiny wires
to the surface of my heart
and kill the current that makes

my heart race like a hare
at times and mope
like a turtle other times.
He’s never lost a patient.
“You’ll be fine,” he says.
“Trust me.”

Nine out of 10 ablations work.
I’ll save hundreds a month, he says,
on medications. No more Multaq.
No more Cardizem. And I’ll never
have to wear a heart monitor again.

“Shall we give it a try?” he asks.
“I’ve got an opening
two weeks from Monday.
It’s an outpatient procedure.
You’ll go home the same day,
rest for a week and then resume
your usual activities, even bowling.
Do you like bowling? My nurses do.
I prefer woodcarving.”

“Okay, Doc,” I tell him.
“I’ll give it a try, but tell me,
where were you 40 years ago
when the kids were small
and I was young, like a bull,
and a different matter of the heart
dropped me like a bullet.
Are you sure my heart’s still ticking?
Where’s your stethoscope?
I haven’t felt a thing in years.”

Hospice

Listen, Dad,
Mom’s dead, but
you can dance
with her again.

She’s waiting
in the sky, behind
a star, humming
to the music.

You and Mom
can waltz around
the moon forever.
She may even sing

that song you like.
I’ll comb your hair,
shine your shoes
and press your old tuxedo.

There’s no rush.
You know Mom.
She’d never dance
with anyone but you.

Kaleidoscope and Harpsichord

As I’ve told my wife too many times,
the meaning of any poem hides
in the marriage of cadence and sound.

Vowels on a carousel,
consonants on a calliope,
whistles and bells,
we need them all
tickling our ears.
Otherwise, the lines
are gristle and fat, no meat.

Is it any wonder, then,
my wife has a problem
with any poem I give her to read
for a second opinion, especially
when the poem has no message
and I’m simply trying to hear
what I’m saying and don’t care
if I understand it.

The other night in bed
I gave her another poem to read
and afterward she said this poem
was no different than the others.
She had hoped I’d improve.

“After all,” she said,
“you’ve been writing for years
but reading a poem like this is
like looking through a kaleidoscope
while listening to a harpsichord.”

Point well taken,
point well said.

But then I asked her
what should a man do
if he has careened for years
through the caves of his mind
spelunking for the right
line for a poem

only to hear his wife say
after reading one of his poems
that it was like
“looking through a kaleidoscope
while listening to a harpsichord.”
What should he do–quit?

“Not a chance,”
she said this morning,
enthroned at the kitchen table,
as regal as ever in her fluttery gown
and buttering her English muffin
with long, languorous strokes
Van Gogh would envy.

“He should write even more,
all day and all night, if need be.
After all,” she said, “my line
about the kaleidoscope and harpsichord
still needs a poem of its own.
It’s all meat, no gristle, no fat.”

Copyright © 2012 Donal Mahoney

Rina Angela Corpus

Featured Poetry of Rina Angela Corpus

After Amorsolo’s Woman Cooking in the Kitchen

The master painter received brickbats
posthumously. Not from present-day
modernists of Edades’ lineage but
from known assailants armed with
the feminist, if not Marxist stance. Why render
the dalagang bukid as delicate, pristine, fair
when she labored hard in the house,
and got sun-burnt in the farms?
It happened after a war that sent
the men scurrying in extreme
directions: the boondocks as rebels,
or the cities in search for the colonial job.

But in one work he rendered her,
squatting low, totally taken
in the act of stoking fire embers
in front of her an earthenware stove.
Her rosy brown face lost
in the industry of managing concoctions
in her kitchen, in the bahay kubo
where she remains – with or without a male denizen –
its most protective
and its most masterful presence.

Angels

An army arrived, dressed in white,
embracing the entire space
with light.

Like phantom vestments,
the first sugar crystals of dawn
suspended itself over the whole world
still ensnared in cavernous slumber.
The evening’s fog, filled with despair,
was slowly lifted.

And light shone in all four corners
for nearly an hour
of luminous quiet. Their foreheads
phosphorescent with knowing gazes
as they communed with
a commander Supreme.

After which they slowly stand
only to wear costumes
so everyday, so various
animating them only to consecrate tasks
with a remembrance of the luminescence
from an empire of light.

In their wake, a fragrance,
an unspoken benediction
for men and mortals to take from:
Over the earth, an unseen
fortress of peace.

Confluence Age

This is the time to awaken
the memory of perfection. Now,
the time of the great quickening
from iron to gold,
from shadow to light,
when small men must
rule over small men
they who wield the strangest, terrifying
of fires destined to consume
the face of the earth.

This is the season to emerge
an incognito army of great, unnamed
warriors, they who march daily to a pilgrimage
place, soundless refuge beyond time
empire of boundless light
where their weapons are unfurled
as edicts of merciful justice,
their thoughts re-sharpened
into wings, armory becoming light,
their might gathering away from men’s minds
an accumulation of centuries of dark lies
etched behind every rust and dust
in the deepest bowls of earth.

They have come to revive
the remembrance of a miracle of sun, luminiferous
in its perfect ordination
of catapulting humanity from inferno
to reborn us to a world
more original, more magical
that it will again be called
Paradise.

Evening Meditation in Rajasthan, India

It is nine p.m.
and the cool breeze
carries the mind to a soundless chant
as ancient as time
primeval as the love
I have carried
in the folds of this heart
through birth after birth
a love for this One
whom I have named
My Beloved.

So I, oldest of devotees
sit under the bare stillness of jasmine trees
as the wind scatters
the scent of frankincense
across the mountain ashram.

Dust finally settles down
like a royal mantle
under my feet.

And the indigo sky is lit
with stars softly brimming
in aureoles of joyousness
and with a love
that I have always known to be
of the Divine.

Evening Time

Tonight, the cartography of stars
widens the night scape
beckoning me to observe
and just sit still.

Before me
a royal vestment has unfurled
from an extra solar fairyland
inviting me to be its prince
in this one childlike moment.

So I gaze steadily,
enthused to greet
the next apparition

As luminous
as the supernova
of God’s ever-lit eyes.

The Jeweler
(For Prajapita Brahma, 1876-1969)

As he lay on bed, his mien
faded into pristine light.
The blue of night peered through
his lowly hut on the mountaintop
while the world whispered a silent ode
of love to this man.
For he had completed a full cycle.

The fragrance of his deeds surrounded him
like petals of summer jasmine.
And the children he cared for,
though not his own, stood before him
now grown women with faces luminescent,
as the diamonds he had polished all through his life.
For to them he stood as parent,
teacher, companion, friend, trustee,
yet also just a fellow pilgrim on the path
of their chosen life — numinous, rarefied,
offered only to the Divine.

They were ready for this moment,
rehearsing daily the hushed ways of angels
diurnal moments beyond sound.
At 93, the soul they fondly called Baba
easily tugged away from the ballast
of matter, only to fly back
to a light-filled region
where he is to fulfill his greater charge:
To awaken more children who are to be the jewels
of his Beloved’s eyes.

Moongazing in Manila

The air is stripped of inanities tonight
as the city sky reveals
a golden host
aureoled in light.

From my window
I decipher the profile of a man’s face
etched on her cheek.

But the towering condominiums
that now mushroom the city
Diminish her to a minute disc.

I go to sleep with an image of her in mind:
Infinitesimal like the tiny point of light
Now resting
behind my eyes.

Original Dance

I.

This pilgrimage being unique
you ready yourself
from the point of departure
the cusp of the heart
where resides
an original desire
to return to roots
and be unmoored
by wings of light.

You travel easy
slipping away
from transient costume
and mask of clay.

And you become a tiny point
of conscious light
the jewel behind the eyes.

You transform to become
once more
your own eternal king
in an original dance
with your Supreme.

II.

Your remembrance is a force
that resists the buoyancy of air
like a rocket, with lightning speed,
catapulting you
to timeless space,
empire of luminous light
where the Lord of Light resides.

And He fills you, and He sweetens you
with a fragrance
that quenches your every longing
to belong
to the Father, Mother,
Friend, Teacher,
Guide, Healer,
Beloved…

And the Lord of Light
responds with the sweetest of songs:
My child, you are mine
and I am yours.

Refuse

My weekends are repeated scenarios of refusals.
After a week of heady trysts with theories and texts
In the university
I get home from the dorm
and find mother in the kitchen

I buss her and she begins
quizzing me for the umpteenth time now
how I’d have to feed my future hypothetical hubby
when I simply come to barge in
to her domain
only interested to devour her dishes
with nary the wish to ever learn
how to specialize in concocting
her gustatory recipes.

I manage to smile
and keep on munching the repast
as sumptuous, I must note
as the servings of Cisneros, Irigaray
and Cixous
from feminist lit class.

Then mom points to me her apron
with her primary spiel:
“When you’re done dear,
please wear this and clean up your mess,
that’s the least you can do, sweetie.”

And the most I do
is to finish to the last sweet bite,
and say my graces, with eyes closed.

Then I stand up to throw
a whole week’s worth
of refuse.

Shiv Shakti

Her heart, pristine as the full moon
a third eye perpetual
watching over mortals kill sweet time
in a deathless stupor.
And she sends signals
for their great moment
of awakening.

Her name, she has shed her many other names
and their intricate tales
only to give birth to a newer self.
Her newborn spirit a benediction
cascading through the ages
from an ancient birthplace,
cradle to humanity’s oldest language:
She is power, God’s creative energy,
the divine feminine in India’s Sanskrit.
Combined with God Shiva
she is His Equal, Friend,
Companion, Right hand.

Her mind, filled with luminous ruminations
growing into wings resplendent
phosphorescent, igniting others in the path
of return to an original place
of dignity, of peace, of love.
For she has experienced that point of stillness,
quintessence of pure being.

Her intellect, a razor-sharp sword
cutting through illusions, separating jewels
from the counterfeit
seizing those of eternal value
from those with short-lived luster.
Unveiling fiercely the excessive
weight of layers
only to reveal her essence
seeing the luminiscence of her truth
by whose sacramental light she walks
the many nights by.

Her language, silence, from the Home of Silence
fortress of boundless space,
timeless, soundless, light-filled
refuge. Her point of origin is now
her same point of destination
and she dies from her many selves,
and sheds off their variegated veils.

And she becomes the jewel of light
communing with the Supreme Light
in a meeting culminating
all meetings.

Now, she is with her One Mother,
One Father, One Teacher, One Guide,
One Beloved, the One who fills her
with absolutely everything,
everything.

Copyright © 2012 Rina Angela Corpus

Neil Leadbeater

Featured Poetry of Neil Leadbeater

Sea Cucumbers

Any dictionary worth its salt describes them as
holothurian;
“one of a phylum of radially symmetrical marine animals
such as the brittlestar or the sea urchin,”
and then, almost as an afterthought,
“also known as the sea gherkin.”

Your shock when they coughed up their guts under threat.
The string of thread ejected from the mouth -
white fibre flying off the reel.

Strip them down to the chassis and you will see them
in the raw -
or maybe not, as the case may be,
since they’re hard to spot, obscure to see, holed-up in
hide-outs, starting-holes, lairs;
a lurking-place for living in; lumber under stairs.

-

Sea Squirts

Tides will blow their cover. They will make you privy
to every place they hide in
which is the hard edge of harbours, pilings, piers;
caves where the waves wash in food -
a meal of tidal plankton.

But it was the way they forced out water that took you
by surprise.

Back home, you did your best to imitate their kind:
it started with the soda syphon, your elder sister’s
Revlon spray,
aerosol cans, mosquito repellent -
whatever your five-year-old hands could find
until you were comfortable with the fact of brine
shooting from the gut.

-

Sacrifice of the Cork Oak

If someone came to rip off your skin
would you run away or stand still
rooted to the spot?

Would you get used to it over time?

To have your cells pared off
like the zest of a lemon
and then to feel the outside air
raw on the inner wound.

How vulnerable you must feel;
reaching out for your
hard exterior; your disembodied bark
in the shell of the ear for love.

-

Oranges Coming of Age

Somehow the whole hesperidium
comes into its own.

It shrugs off that hard exterior;

wears its skin without blemish;

is heavy for its size;

has a thin peel;

exudes scent;

is neither pomelo nor mandarin

but “China’s apple”

a fire-burst of summer segments
squeezed out and citrus-cool:

the juice in the glass beside you.

-

Montesinho

Montesinho, behind the mountains,
is rugged
-a remote and exiled outback, the last outpost
of wilderness;

is the cold land of independent spirit;
the inaccessible region
where the long-distance loneliness
of the Rabaçal river
holds a passage of snook and bass;

is the last refuge of the Iberian wolf;
the prized domain of the golden eagle.
Its scented scrub
the home of the rock bunting and the
red-backed shrike;
wild boars, otters, cats;

this habitat of light.

-

Alexanders

Each plant demands to be looked at, noticed
for what it is worth. Introductions
are numerous.
Their real name is Smyrnian olustratum,
black lovage in the vernacular,
but they would like you to invent
a tenuous link
to the Emperor.

Their one statement
is that the world is largely YELLOW.

It is a sun-filled, fun-filled thing.

On a practical note, the roots
are good for colic.

After the harvest
their black seeds are sold in shops
as a prophylactic for snake-bite.

Just when you think you are becoming acquainted
they jump into another word
to try to describe
their colour:

lemon, say, or saffron.

Another “take” on yellow.

-

Frederick Street

was the axis of all things electrical -
old wind-up gramophones,
the home of broadcaster sapphire needles
that would play
The Laughing Policeman
5,000 times without replacement
priced six shillings and sixpence
(tax paid).

Days like this
we’d cross the street
with our brightly coloured towels and trunks
rolled into cylinders of equal lengths
headed for the baths.
The air was electric. Sparks flew
with the thrill of who could do the crawl
or dive from the highest board.
No-one there could
pull the plug on our lives.

Knowing where we were going
we felt the hum of danger
singing down the wires -
it broke inside us like sheet lightning
and lit us up for miles.

-

Days when the Schools were Closed

Days when the schools were closed
we never gave a thought for the levellers, the green-fingered
conjurors with their heavy-duty boots;
men who came in the name of Grounds Maintenance
majestic through the gates -
or guessed how the sod-cutters with their ride-on mowers
gave the pitch a run for its money
top-dressing for games
or how when the posts were up on their feet
the men were suddenly scoring goals
against imagined sides.

Copyright © 2012 Neil Leadbeater